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Wednesday, November 7, 2018

30 x 30

Happy November, all! I LOVE fall, and not just for the reasons you think I love it. I mean, yes, I love all the basic white girl things: crunchy leaves, pumpkin decor, sweater weather...and I've actually never had a Pumpkin Spice Latte, but it sounds good, so I don't hate.Plus, there's fantasy and high school football, sewing, chili, zuppa, curried butternut soup...oh, did I just list three types of soup? Oops. Anyway, I love fall, and all the fall things. It is my absolute favorite season, hands down.

But amidst all the sweaters, soup, and overall snuggly nature of these crunchy days, there's a hurriedness and renewed vigor that gets down into the very bottom of my soul. It's like the earth woke up from the slushy winter and skipped through spring, yawned and played and sun-bathed through summer, and then all of a sudden it found itself in fall and remembered it has stuff to do! The days get shorter and the world just gets busier and bursts with as much activity as it can before winter has its say. It's not frantic or worried, just...purposeful. Driven. Wise. Mmmmm. I love it. This is the time of year when I feel most driven and purposeful. (I never feel wise, though. Color changes can only do so much for a person, I guess.) This is the time of year when I want to finish projects, use my time well, do meal planning, meal prepping, even some deep-cleaning (you know, like vacuuming). This is high-gear time for me, and it makes me consider my goals.

This blog has more or less become for me an account of what goals I'm setting for myself at any given time, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I love having it "out there" that I'm trying to move forward with something. However, I decided not to post a list of New Year's resolutions this January, and ever since then I've been feeling a little guilty about not explaining myself. The thing is, I didn't make any resolutions or set any new goals in January, because I already had a list of goals I was working on. I was ticking off items on my 30x30 list.

In July of 2017 I realized I had about 1.5 years to go before my thirtieth birthday. Now, before you get all, "Don't even worry about it, thirty is NOT old!" on me, let me just tell you: I am SO EXCITED to get to my thirties. In fact, I feel impatient to be there. I honestly don't know exactly why that's true--it may have something to do with over-viewing "13 Going on 30" (because Mark Ruffalo) and now, "Thirty and flirty and thriving" is just forever etched onto my subconscious mind--but suffice it to say that I am all in for my thirties. I'm not mad. I think it'll be great.

It occurred to me, though, on that fateful July day, that I had certain assumptions about why it would be great, about who I would be as I hit my thirties. It also occurred to me that I would not magically become that person as I got older simply because I was, in fact, getting older. I wanted to set myself up to be as capable as I could of truly enjoying my thirties. So I made a list of thirty goals to help me get there: my 30x30 list.

Although there were a few bucket-listy things I included simply because I wanted to, I tried to keep the items on my list focused on things that would help me set myself up for entering my 30s with purpose and enjoyment, and really just better habits. I tried to consider who I wanted to be, compare it to who I was, and try to come up with manageable, goal-oriented processes to get from point A to point B. For instance, I want to be someone who will challenge and strengthen themselves intellectually, so I made a goal to read 20 books in my 18 months before turning 30 so that I would be in the habit of reading regularly. I've now read more in the last year and change than I had since babyhig was born! Not mad at all.

I have a little over three months left before I hit my thirtieth, and a LOT of things still left on my list. I'm posting (most of) my 30x30 list here to help with accountability, and to see if anyone else has a similar list of goals they're striving toward! I would LOVE to know about it, so please drop a comment or send me an email if you do! I'll drop in to post more about this in days to come, so if you've got questions about why certain things made the list, let me know about those, too.

A few things on my list are of a fairly personal nature, so I'm not including those, but the rest are included here. Items written in strike-through are completed. Without further ado, and in no particular order the 30x30:

Run a 5k

Complete Fish Lake Tri

Get to a 50% handmade wardrobe

Sell custom clothes

Go to Italy

Take a culinary class

Figure out how to make delicious sourdough bread

Landscape the yard

Grow a summer-long garden

Host a dinner party

Make Easter or Christmas outfits for the kids

Get a real haircut

Perm, and maybe even color, my hair

Flip a house

Finish 20 books (5 and 2 halves to go!)

**Personal**

**Personal**

Learn to drive a stick (I feel like this one is dumb and needs to be replaced. Taking suggestions!)

Write regularly (2x a month til February! One down!)

Teach a Sunday School class OR Bible Study

Pursue Hygmalion purposefully, set goals and hours

Learn to play ukulele

Be a water drinker

Read through the Bible

Form a band

Play Pride & Prejudice score, and Linus & Lucy

Catch up with & regularly make time for scrapbook (really close!)

House to Home

Form a regular housekeeping routine

Form a regular self-care routine

There we go! Looks like I better get busy! Drop a comment and let me know if you stopped by & read this, it'll really help motivate me to know who knows I'm not supposed to be wasting time. ;)

I guess my hesitation is that I won’t have the opportunity to regularly drive a standard, so how will I know when I’ve really “learned?” But if it’s really that great, I’ll get over my hesitation and leave it on the list! I trust you!

That's fair, but basically once you can start/stop without stalling it, you've "learned" lol My Dad made me learn because he wanted to make sure I didn't get stranded somewhere simply because I couldn't drive a standard.